Awakening (2 page)

“
Yes. If you tell me no,
I’ll go find someone else.”

Only problem was there weren’t a lot
of people willing to teach outside their guild, and we both knew
it.

“
You think you can handle
learning the black arts?”

I wasn’t sure I could handle it, but I
wasn’t about to admit my fear to him. So I kept quiet and
nodded.

“
Luke, you can’t be
serious. You can’t teach her.” Darla had finished braiding her
hair--her attention now was on the two of us.

“
Stay out of it,
Darla!”

“
No way Uncle would let you
do it!” Her brown eyes blazing with anger, Darla jumped down from
the counter and rounded up on him.

He took a step away from her and
turned to me. “Have you had any training?”

I lifted the sleeve of my jacket and
turned my forearm, revealing the small tattoo of a blue swallow
inked into my skin just above my palm.

“
You’re a healer.” He
couldn’t have sounded more shocked.

I could feel tears starting to form,
but I forced them back. “I was.”

“
You can’t learn the dark
arts. Your people would never allow such a thing.” He frowned. He’d
looked on me first with ridicule, then in amusement, and now he was
watching me as though I was some kind of puzzle he was trying to
work out.

It was true. I’d taken the sacred
oath, and if anyone caught me learning the dark arts, let alone
using them, I’d be punished, possibly imprisoned. I knew the risk,
but I didn’t care.

“
Will you teach me?” I knew
he could hear the desperation in my voice. I felt it in the very
core of my being. My hands were visibly trembling. I’d done a
pretty good job of keeping it together until now, but hunger and
exhaustion
washed over
me
. I had been on my own, trying to deal
with what happened, and it was suddenly all too much. If seeing me
fall apart in front of him was the only way to convince him of my
sincerity, then I didn’t care if he saw my fear and desperation. He
was my last hope. My only chance to stay alive and maybe, if I
lived long enough and I got lucky, I would have a chance to take my
revenge.

He didn’t answer right away. Darla
stood next to him, her eyes wide but her expression unreadable. She
watched us both in silence. And as we all stood there, the silence
stretched on and on, and all the while Luke’s unyielding dark eyes
surveyed me. I had a feeling he was trying to figure me out, he was
trying to coax out my secrets, but I knew he couldn’t. Training in
my art had given me the necessary skills to defend my thoughts if I
needed to.

I pushed down the urge to shift from
foot to foot while I waited for an answer. When he finally broke
the silence, I physically jumped.

“
Come back tomorrow night
after midnight.” He pocketed the bills.

“
The witching hour.” I said
the words through clenched teeth. It was not the response I was
expecting. The witching hour was a time when people slept, and the
world seemed tranquil, except it was more than that. It wasn’t
truly tranquil and safe, not for people like us. For those of us
who knew better it could be wild, chaotic and dangerous.

“
Yes, the witching hour.”
He crossed his arms over his chest.

A shudder went through me. What the
heck was I getting myself into?

“
Still time to change your
mind.” His voice was low.

“
I know what I’m
doing.”

“
Do you? A healer? You’ve
seen the life leave a person, watched their energy dissipate into
the ether sea, but have you ever called on that same energy? Ever
felt its pulse swirling and circling around you? It’s not for the
faint of heart.”

What could I say? He was right. I had
never called on the spirits. Honestly, I only had an inkling of the
type of magic his guild used. I knew that it was the strongest
magic. If I was going to survive, if I was going to exact my
revenge, it was the magic I needed to learn, no matter the
consequences. I had no choice but to head down this road, but that
didn’t stop fear and panic from settling into the pit of my
stomach.

A phone rang before I could reply. He
made his way back around the counter and picked up the receiver and
started talking on the phone.

When I had gone looking for a death
dealer, I hadn’t been given a name. A piece of paper with an
address and a brief description of the shop had been the only
things I had to go on. I had made it here in one piece and someone
had agreed to teach me. It was a victory, a small one, but I’d take
what I could at this point.

I realized I was standing there like
an idiot, watching Luke talk on the phone, when I should have been
high-tailing it out of there. We’d completed our business. He might
have reservations, but he’d taken my money and agreed to teach me.
I had no reason to linger. If I hung around he might change his
mind, yet there I was--staying and staring.

He was good looking, with piercing
eyes and a rugged jaw. He had broad shoulders and a long scar ran
down his left shoulder, the end of it lost beneath the black
material. I wondered how far the scar ran. At the last thought, I
felt a heat rise inside me. My cheeks flushed, and for a moment my
heart pounded. I reminded myself that he was a death
dealer.

I realized in horror that the phone
conversation was over, and he was talking to me, but I had been so
caught up in my own thoughts that I had missed everything he
said.

I felt a blush spread across my
cheeks. Like an idiot I mumbled, “Uh, what?”

“
You can’t go back out in
the streets.” He looked deadly serious.

“
Who’s going to stop me?” I
regained my composure, but my voice was more than a bit
defensive.

“
The Triads. I just got a
call from a neighbor. The Triads are hanging out down the block.”
He walked around the counter until he stood in front of me. “You’ll
have to stay here. At least for a couple hours until the coast is
clear.”

No way was I staying. I had gotten
what I came for. It was time to leave. The Triads didn’t scare me.
I was a healer and even they had a code against harming a healer.
But I was no longer a healer, I reminded myself. I was going to
delve into the forbidden magics. I was soon to become someone on
the fringe of society. No respectable person mingled with the
Phoenix Guild.

A wave of exhaustion suddenly hit me.
I grabbed the corner of the closest table to steady myself. Making
the decision to come here, forcing him to take me on, had taken all
the energy out of me. The anger, the desperation, the
determination, it all suddenly evaporated.

“
Are you all right?” Darla
asked, coming to my side.

The words came out in a harsh whisper.
“I’m fine. I skipped a couple meals.”

It had been at least three days since
food had passed my mouth. I had forced myself to drink, but every
time I had tried to eat the images had come and the nausea had set
in.

“
I just felt dizzy for a
second. There’s no need to make a fuss.” My voice sounded
unbelievably weak even to my own ears.

Darla bent down, and her fingers
grazed across my forehead. “She’s not okay. Luke, bring her
upstairs.”

I began to slump and Luke reached out
and put an arm around my waist, supporting me.

I tried to pull myself out of his
grip, but he was extremely strong. “You can let me go, I’m
okay.”

“
Darla, lock up the shop.
With the Triads out there, best thing to do is lock up and sit
tight until they get bored and move on.” He ignored my protest and
began to lead me behind the counter and through a doorway into a
small hallway.

I felt like a helpless rag doll in his
arms as he moved us along the hall to the foot of a wooden
staircase.

“
Since you can’t leave, you
might as well come upstairs. We haven’t had a chance to eat. We can
get some food into you. Can you make it up the stairs?” The
harshness had left his voice. He sounded almost kind.

“
I’m fine, I just need to…”
I couldn’t finish the sentence, the world around me started to fade
away.

“
Hey, don’t pass out.” He
leaned down and lifted me into his arms.

He carried me up the stairs and
delivered me across a large room onto a brown couch sitting against
a bright red painted wall.

I needed a moment to catch my breath
and gather my strength. Showing so much weakness in front of
strangers embarrassed me. I had been an idiot to go so long without
food. Sleep was something I was not doing a lot of lately. Every
time I closed my eyes the nightmares rushed in. It wasn’t
surprising my body suddenly rebelled and gave way. I’d lie here for
a minute or two, catch my breath, and then head out.

Suddenly he was standing over me. He
had a bottle of soda in one hand and two plastic glasses in the
other.

He handed over the bottle and the
glasses. “We’ve got some cheese and salami in the fridge. Darla
picked up some fresh bread at the local bakery this
morning.”

What choice did I have? If I kept
going this way, I’d end up passed out on the streets.

I looked up at him and forced a smile.
“Thanks for the dinner invite. I accept.”

* * * *

The food was good. I ate until I
couldn’t take another bite. My coat was now draped next to me on
the couch. I leaned back against the leather cushions and relaxed
for the first time in what seemed like a lifetime.

My gaze kept going to Luke. There was
little resemblance to the imposing figure I had dealt with down in
the store-front. Luke relaxed upstairs. He hadn’t said much while
we ate, and now he sat back in his chair finishing a bite of
bread.

Every time I glanced his way he was
looking at me, his stare openly inquisitive.

He was not what I had expected. He
didn’t hide like the rest of the members of his guild. People knew
about the shop, and they came to it looking for things they needed
to work spells. He was wearing a phoenix on his t-shirt for God
sakes. This was not a guy trying to keep to the shadows--this was a
guy living openly in a society that deeply despised his kind. Did
he feel alienated? Did he have friends outside his
guild?

And what about his sister, Darla? I
wondered if she practiced the arts. She sat quietly finishing off
her meal. It was hard to tell if someone possessed magic just by
looking at them. Was she also a death dealer? Would the Phoenix
Guild initiate someone so young?

I wondered how different her life was
from mine. I had become a healer like my mother and her mother
before her. The path to becoming a healer did start at fifteen, but
at that age I had only learned the basics about plants and
medicine. Mama hadn’t allowed me to delve into the magics that went
along with healing until I hit my seventeenth birthday. I had
started my training three months ago and, in that time, I’d learned
as much as I could as fast as I could.

No other career choice had ever
entered my mind. It had been taken for granted that I would follow
in my family’s footsteps, and honestly I didn’t have any regrets. I
especially loved working with plants--being out in the sunshine, my
hands pushed into the dirt of mother earth, growing fragile things
with care and love, creating medicines to heal the sick. Mixing
potions, learning the craft that had been passed down through the
generations--there was no part of being a healer that hadn’t made
my heart swell with joy and had me leaping out of bed every morning
full of excitement. The world had seemed a place of endless
possibilities.

But all of that was now behind me, and
the path before me was full of shadows and darkness. I was going to
become a death dealer, and I didn’t have the faintest idea what
kind of lives they led.

I took a good look at my
surroundings. I was in a studio apartment, but the space was
enormous. A well
outfitted
kitchen with granite counters and cherry cabinets
stood at one side of the room. The middle area had been arranged as
a living room and office. A couch lay against the wall on a large
patterned rug surrounded by two oversized chairs. To the right of
the couch, in front of a row of tall windows, stood a desk with a
laptop computer and printer. Next to the desk was a small row of
black metal cabinets. On the other side of the room were three
large partitions--walls that didn’t quite make it all the way up to
the ceiling. Bedrooms, I imagined.

“
This is a nice place.” It
was an expensive place. Every piece of furniture, every knickknack,
screamed money.

“
It’s my uncle’s.” Luke
leaned forward and put his plate down on an old blue steamer trunk
which served as a table for our meal. “Are you going to tell us
what brought you here?”

“
Good food, terrific soda,
what’s not to like?” My answer brought a scowl to his face, but I
wasn’t going to be intimidated. I was the one paying for his
services, and I wasn’t about to fill him in on the details of my
life. “My understanding is that your type of work comes with a
certain assurance of anonymity. Like when you pay a shrink or a
lawyer.”